SATURDAY, OCTOBER 25 : International March on Washington DC

MASS MARCH ON WASHINGTON TO SAY:
Bring the troops home now
End the occupation of Iraq
Money for jobs, education & healthcare - Not war

The people in Iraq want the U.S. occupation to end. The U.S. soldiers in Iraq
want to come home. On Saturday, October 25, tens of thousands of people in the
U.S., joined by delegations from countries around the world, will go back into
the streets to demand End the Occupation, Bring the Troops Home Now! Under the
banner, "The World Unites Against U.S. Militarism," the demonstration, marching
from the Justice Department to the White House to the Pentagon, will also demand
an end to the looting and destruction of social programs by the Bush Administration.

The Bush Administration lied to the people, to the Congress, and to the United
Nations as it raced to wage war against Iraq. The Bush administration is now
carrying out a cover up of its lies and deceptions.

Every day, people are dying as a consequence of this illegal occupation. Every
day human misery expands in the drive for world Empire and corporate globalization.
Every day, vital social programs that serve and protect working people in the
U.S. are being destroyed as the Bush administration cynically manipulates the
slogan of the "war on terrorism" to carry out the social transfer of wealth from
the bottom to the top. It has served as a public relations ploy for their Robin-Hood-in-reverse
politics. Stopping Bush’s war abroad and his war at home is a matter of life
and death. None of us has the luxury of waiting. The time to act is now.

Tens of thousands of Iraqis and hundreds of U.S. GIs have been killed and maimed.
As the anger of the Iraqi people will inevitably grow, the body count on both
sides will sharply increase.

As the anti-war movement predicted, the Iraqi people view U.S. forces as colonial
occupiers, not liberators. U.S. troops, frightened by the hostile environment
and encouraged by the racist climate created by the military brass, are killing
and being killed in a war that serves only the interests of U.S. oil monopolies
and corporate elites - George W. Bush’s real constituents. U.S. soldiers and
their families are now realizing that high government officials, mostly millionaires
who shuttle between corporate boardrooms and government posts, are using U.S.
troops as a private security detachment for Corporate America’s plunder of Iraq’s
oil riches.

The October 25 International March on Washington will include delegations invited
from countries around the world whose banners will represent resistance to the
threat posed by the Bush Administration’s hyper-aggressive "preemptive war" strategy.
The Bush Administration has also just won approval from Congress to proceed with
the creation of a new generation of tactical nuclear weapons explicitly designed
to be used in the Third World in coming conflicts. The march will demand an immediate
end to this new nuclear arms race.

As we continue the movement in opposition to the occupation of Iraq, we must
also oppose the daily threats against the people of Palestine, Afghanistan, Iran,
Korea, Cuba, the Philippines, Colombia, Liberia, Zimbabwe, and all others that
are targets of the Bush administration.

The demonstration will be followed on October 26 by an assembly with international
delegates from the global anti-war movement to assess and strategize challenging
the Bush Administration’s war drive and the component assault on civil rights
and civil liberties taking place in many countries under the cloak of "national
security" laws, including the Patriot Act in the U.S.

THE WAR AT HOME

The Bush administration will spend $2.7 trillion in a vast expansion of the U.S.
military-industrial apparatus, while eliminating or severely cutting taxes for
Corporate America and the one percent of the richest part of the United States
population to the tune of $1 trillion. The administration is pursuing a calculated
strategy to create a fiscal crisis inside the United States so that lawmakers
will be compelled to cut or eliminate social programs for which there will no
longer be funds.

Pentagon officials now admit that they intend for the U.S. to maintain at least
150,000 troops in Iraq for the "foreseeable future," while the cost of the U.S.
war in and occupation of Iraq is nearly $4 billion a month, a "burn rate" that
will also continue.

The government of the richest country in human history is spending more for war
than any government in human history and has its troops stationed in more than
750 military installations and bases located in more than 130 countries all over
the world. This is the means by which the Bush administration, the Pentagon and
Corporate America are advancing the goal of Empire.

The rapid expansion of U.S. militarism under the Bush administration is not only
a threat to the people of the world, it is a calculated assault on the standard
of living and rights of working people. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz have
a plan to destroy every social reform that has been achieved since the 1930s.
What are they seeking to destroy or privatize? Social security, medicare, medicaid,
public education, affirmative action, civil rights, women’s rights, reproductive
health, l/g/b/t rights, environmental protections, and any other programs or
social rights that are perceived as either a restriction on corporate power and
profits or are a focus of attack by the ultra-right’s political program. Under
the Bush Administration, the war at home has also meant a rise in attacks against
communities of color. Police brutality against the African American and Latino
communities in particular have escalated, from New York City to Ohio and across
the country.

The October 25-26 weekend is also the second anniversary of the signing of the
so-called Patriot Act authorizing political arrests, indefinite detentions and
domestic spying. As the Bush administration - which only came to power due to
massive racist disenfranchisement and voting fraud — violates international
law it has been systematically engaged in a campaign of division and repression
in the United States including a wholesale assault on the Bill of Rights, institutionalization
of racial profiling, and aggregation of near dictatorial powers to the Executive
branch. The demonstration will be a political challenge to the attack on civil
rights and civil liberties and the expansion of the system of repression in the
U.S. and in countries around the world which have also adopted new repressive
National Security laws.

The people of the world went into the streets unparalleled global mobilizations
before the war started. On October 25, we will go into the streets again. The
anti-war, civil rights and social justice movement, whose ranks are being joined
in ever increasing numbers by the family members of military personnel and U.S.
veterans, can create the effective political force that will end the occupation
of Iraq and bring the troops home immediately. It was only the people’s movement
that ended the invasion and occupation of Vietnam and it will be the global people’s
anti-war movement that will help end the U.S. occupation of Iraq.

***************

The A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition was formed in the days after September 11 by progressive
organizations and people in the United States who recognized the need to take
immediate action in response to the Bush administration’s headlong rush to war
and the racist attacks against the Arab and Muslim communities in the U.S. The
Coalition organized the first national demonstration against war and racism following
September 11 on September 29, 2001, which brought 25,000 people into the streets
of Washington DC and 15,000 in San Francisco. The Coalition has worked to build
an anti- racist, peace and social justice movement, including mass mobilizations
on April 20, 2002 (in support of justice for Palestine) and October 26, 2002
(the first demonstration in opposition to the war drive against Iraq), and the
first global day of action against the war in Iraq, January 18, 2003, when millions
of people around the world took part in simultaneous demonstrations, including
a half a million people in Washington DC. The Coalition coinued to organize mass
demonstrations in February and March and began the campaign against U.S. occupation
of Iraq in April, 2003.

Its national steering committee represents major national organizations that
have campaigned against U.S. militarism and intervention in Latin America, the
Caribbean, the Middle East and Asia, and organizations that work towards social
and economic justice and civil rights for people inside the United States.

Collective Bellaciao
29.07.2003